In recent years, organic reach on Facebook has seen a strong decline. Reach is defined as the number of people who have seen your post. On your personal Facebook, you aren’t going to see this number, but for anyone running a Facebook page – this is an important number.

The challenge for social media marketing started a few years ago when Facebook began suppressing the reach of posts from Pages. Organic reach started to decline as early as 3 years ago. In 2012 = between 15-20% of people who had “liked” your Page saw organic posts. In 2013 that number dropped to ~10% and by 2014 it dropped to 1-3%.

This left many social media marketing teams with no choice but to “pay to play”. Facebook started to offer a “Boost Post” option at the same time it started to suppress organic reach. Boosting a post raises the percentage of people who have liked your page who get to see your post in their News Feed.

But do you really have to pay to play?

Sometimes. Here are three top tips to get your Facebook page working for you again.

Boost post:

A boosted post starts out as an organic post. Once you have created the post, you have the option to “boost”. The image below shows you some of the options you can select. Generally, I favor “People who like your Page”. The other options open you up to be marked as a spammer and should be only considered in a campaign to reach net-new audiences. A boost can start as low as $5 and your reach will vary based on your total audience. In addition, this small investment helps drive organic traffic for posts that follow within a couple days after the boost starts. This is a great option if you have seen your reach drop so low you cannot break out of the low reach conundrum and drive engagement.

Know when your Audience is Online:

Facebook gives you the tools to find this. Go to your Insights, choose “Posts” then the tab for When your Fans are Online. In the example below, you can see the top times for when fans are online is between 5am and 9am PST with Wednesday and Friday the busiest days.

Use popular hashtags and ask a question:

The hashtag #TBT for Throwback Thursday has gained popularity not just on Twitter but on Facebook. By using it in this post and asking a question, we saw 3x the normal organic reach and 3x the engagement rate!

The bottom line – you can reach the audience who has opted-in to your Facebook Page. By combining very selective use of your budget for boosting, with knowing your audience and using creative social content, you can bring your engagement numbers up on Facebook and reach your audience.

For the past four years, Cisco has been at the forefront of forecasting trends in global and regional data center traffic, data center virtualization, cloud computing and more. And in those years, a quick press release, perhaps a timed blog post and a bit of industry buzz have herald the arrival of a new Global Cloud Index (GCI) study. But, with the fast-paced accessibility of social media and news being just a quick “like,” “share,” or “tweet” away, our social media team knew the changing landscape called for an evolution in how the fourth annual GCI study would need to be promoted and shared.

Often one of our most anticipated releases, the Cisco Global Cloud Index (GCI): Forecast and Methodology, 2013 – 2018 (GCI) is an informative – but fairly lengthy – document. Not wanting this to become an obstacle in sharing the study’s key findings, we set out to promote the study findings in an entirely new way, harnessing the power, flexibility in trying new approaches, and extended reach of social media.

Cisco’s social media team knew it would take an innovative campaign to (1) promote the numbers-heavy study findings, (2) showcase the data relevance, and (3) maximize awareness potential as well as thought leadership for the GCI release. Considering the targeted audience – bloggers, analysts, media, government regulators and service providers – the team created sixteen distinctive and “shareable” digital assets. In coming up with the social media strategy, the team considered the following: Read More »

Before you read this, stop and glance around. If you are at home, at work, or in a public place, I bet you see people on their phone, texting, tweeting, or talking. More and more, the smart phone is changing everything about our daily lives. We are streaming music, watching TV, and downloading apps to get the fastest workout or the fastest route home. This massive growth in mobile use is rippling across every industry. Businesses are increasing wireless speeds to meet employee demand, and thinking more about security with the BYOD trend. They are also finding new ways to meet customer needs, especially in retail, thanks to the availability of real-time data from Wi-Fi routers and mobile devices. So where is the future of mobility headed? The Network is taking a look this month, with Focus Magazine. Check out our issue on mobility and learn about the trends that will impact your life.

Welcome to our latest #SocialRoundup blog series about new social media efforts and best practices. Today, we visit the stadium turf and the concert stage to see how brands leveraged the Super Bowl and the GRAMMYS to drive awareness and engagement with their audiences.

The New England Patriots’ 28-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks was the most watched TV show in U.S. history. The challenge for brands, which spent a record $4.5 million for a 30-second TV ad, was maximizing this investment on social media.

The live TV event that is the GRAMMYs proved to be another potent venue for social media, with brands like MasterCard and Patron using Twitter to publish promoted tweets in real time in reaction to what was taking place during the show.

You can’t forget about one of the biggest basketball games of the year –NBA All-Star 2015. This week, the Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility team followed Deborah Huyler and Andrew Torres, two Cisco Networking Academy Dream Team students, as they set up wireless access points and provided network troubleshooting in advance of the NBA All-Star 2015. They have been sharing their stories from Madison Square Garden, the Barclays Center, and other event venues through journal entries, photo slideshows, and videos.

Learn more about Cisco’s involvement at the NBA All-Star game and follow the #NetAcadNBA hashtag on Twitter to see real-time updates from Deborah and Andrew’s NBA All-Star 2015 experiences.

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